THE BLOG BY CPD FOOTBALL | The World of Indian football and beyond by Chris Punnakkattu Daniel

India U-15 Women’s coach Firmin D’Souza: We aim to win the tournament

India U-15 Women’s National Team (Photo courtesy: AIFF Media)

The India U-15 Women National Team will be departing Indian shores for Bhutan on August 7 to participate in the 2018 SAFF U-15 Women’s Championship.

The Indian U-15s have been drawn in Group A of the SAFF U-15 Women’s Championship alongside hosts Bhutan and Sri Lanka. While the Indian girls face Sri Lanka on August 9, they square off against the hosts on August 13.

This will be the second edition of the SAFF U-15 Women’s Championship, the earlier one held in 2017 in Dhaka where the Indian girls finished runners-up to hosts Bangladesh.

Ahead of the departure, Head Coach Firmin D’Souza explained that the team would be going all out to win the Championship.

“The girls have shown commendable zeal, discipline and determination to win. The zeal to improve every day is also highly visible in the batch and our final target is to win the SAFF Cup but we will be taking one match at a time,” said D’Souza.

The girls head to the tournament with a 23-day preparatory camp in Odisha.

“We have worked on our weak areas throughout the camp and it puts is in a happy spot where we are content with our squad depth and chemistry,” Firmin stated. “The focus of the Camp was to play as a team and develop team chemistry by working on conditioning their minds to a certain playing style.”

“We worked on the diets of the players as well and dished out custom diets to everyone as per their needs. The players understand this kind of dedication and the girls have been religiously following the diet plan.”

SAFF U-15 Women’s Championship – India’s Fixtures:

August 9: India vs Sri Lanka
August 13: India vs Bhutan
August 16: Semifinals
August 18: Final

(AIFF Media)